KAHULUI, Hawaiʻi — High-achieving Hawaiʻi students will have greater motivation to stay at home to attend a University of Hawaiʻi campus under a new "Centennial Scholars" program announced today by UH President David McClain.

The University is celebrating its centennial starting this spring and continuing through the 2007-08 school year.

The program will apply to students entering the University starting with the fall of 2007. All ten campuses of the University of Hawaiʻi system will provide a scholarship of $1,000 per year to Hawaiʻi residents who graduate from a Hawaiʻi high school with an unweighted 3.8 grade point average (GPA) or 1800 on the three-part SAT Reasoning Test (or the ACT equivalent) and are admitted as freshmen as full-time students. Students who graduate from high school in May 2007 or later are eligible for the scholarship.

Students will continue to receive the grant for up to four years on a baccalaureate campus and up to two years on a community college campus as long as they maintain a 3.0 GPA every year. Community college recipients who transfer to a baccalaureate campus and who maintain a 3.0 GPA are eligible to continue to receive the scholarship at the baccalaureate campus.

"The Centennial Scholars program provides an incentive for academically talented high school graduates to come to UH," said McClain. "We celebrate their achievement, as we celebrate the University‘s centennial."

In addition, the Mānoa campus will create the "Chancellor‘s Centennial Scholarship" which will give Hawaiʻi students who have both a 3.8 GPA and 1800 on the three-part SAT an additional $1,000 per year. The Hilo campus already has a competitive "Chancellor‘s Scholarship" which awards approximately 15 Hawaiʻi students a scholarship that covers full tuition and fees. Factors in the Hilo Chancellor‘s Scholarship, in addition to academic scholarship, include leadership, experience and potential, community service, and financial need.

The Centennial Scholars program also complements the existing Regents and Presidential Scholarships, which award full tuition, $4,000 annually, and a $2,000 academic travel grant to 30 outstanding Hawaiʻi students based on academic accomplishment, merit or creative achievement, co-curricular or community service, and leadership.

In recent years, approximately 1,000 students in the state of Hawaiʻi had qualifying GPAs for the Centennial Scholarship, while over 1,300 had qualifying SAT scores. Allowing for significant overlap between the two groups, potential value of the scholarships would be well above $1 million in the first year if all those eligible came to UH. When fully implemented in four years, the scholarship will represent a potential commitment of as much as $5 million annually to Hawaiʻi‘s high performing high school graduates.

The Centennial Scholarship will be awarded to all academically qualified students without regard to financial need. All Hawaiʻi resident students who have financial need will still be eligible for federal and University financial aid as well as the State of Hawaiʻi B Plus Scholarship.

The University already currently awards more than $16 million in need-based and non-need-based institutional financial assistance. It will increase this assistance annually over the next six years in the form of need-based Opportunity Grants and non-need based Achievement Scholarships, International Student Scholarships, and Pacific Islanders Scholarships. In addition, the University awards scholarships from donations raised by the UH Foundation in the amount of approximately $5 million annually.